I’d fail, too! My dreams of a perfect college GPA were shattered after my first semester. I was in the honors CS intro class for majors. Half the class dropped. I was in office hours twice a week. If the teacher was cancelling their office hours, they would send me an individual email to let me know. I’ve never worked so hard for a class in my life. Earned a “C” but got a “B” since I’m pretty sure they knew I was never going to take another CS class! And I was never so happy to get such a grade!
And yes, lots of kids code. But how many of them have their coding highlighted by such major orgs? And the kid is a software developer for some company that got redacted out that he felt was more impressive than being recognized by IBM. The reaches are long shots, but someone has to be let in.